Explosions in the Tower
by Elihu
Summary: One-shots :: Post-Rock :: Drabbles :: Lies :: Songs by Explosions in the Sky. Lyrics by The Titan Universe.
1. First Breath After Coma

Crack... ... crack... ...

Crack... ... crack... ...

Crack... ... crack... ...

**Beat.**

Again.

Hard.

Like a drum.

_A drum?_

_A pulse._

_Repeated._

**BeatBeat.**

Not from my head, like before, but from my chest.

_My heart?_

The cracking is getting faster, like my skin is flaking.

It's spreading everywhere... up, down, over, under, across. I feel it on my stomach, and under my arms, and across my toes.

_My toes?_

_My toes!_

_I can kinda feel my toes._

They twitch like claws of some lizard or a scary bird.

_Birdboy?_

And then suddenly, it peeps in.

Light.

_Lights from the carnival._

Dull rays of dirty light around and through the cracks spread sparsely across my face. There's a light that grows faintly brighter at the corner of my vision, seeping through and touching up my face, warming up the crazy numbness that spans my entire being.

Then it stops.

_Why can't I move?_

I'm held like a patient in a full body cast, blinder than a bat and stiffer than the Tin Man.

_Tin Man..._

Whatever has me held is strong, strong enough to prevent me from shifting positions or even flexing. And it keeps my eyes trained on the same patch of brown.

_Chocolate?_

_Mud._

_Why am I covered in dirt?_

**BeatBeat.**

**BeatBeat.**

**BB. BB. BB...**

I feel my heart beat rhythmically and begin fidgeting along with it.

_I hate standing still. And I get the weird feeling that I've been standing still for a real long time..._

A satisfying crunch pops from my shoulder, and I try my best to smile. I try to push backward and immediately feel the hard press of the mold pushing back on me.

But I don't stop, I only push harder and struggle more violently. Like some kinda drowning kid in a mudslide.

_Who the hell comes up with a metaphor like that?_

A clod brakes off at my face.

A piece at my thigh.

A sliver at my elbow.

Flakes from my back and dust from my chest.

My body is on **fire**. Everything burns, my body aches and my muscles feel like they haven't moved in ages, but somehow I still fight. Fight the cracking cage and the noisy claustrophobia that's spinning in my head like a heavy stone wheel.

_A Ferris wheel?_

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

And suddenly... I'm free.

Free all over the dusty floor.

My eyes are maladjusted, I can't see a single blinkin' thing, but I can sense an emptiness in each direction around me.

Alone.

_Where am I?_

_**Underground.**_

_How did I get here?_

_**Apprentice.**_

_Who the hell is answering my questions?_

Trailing rocks echo in the cave, and I stand stupidly by, apparently waiting for an answer from a little voice inside my head.

_Yeah, cause I have a conscience..._

I inhale deeply for the first time and feel the dank air fill my lungs and dust them out like rugs.

My eyes suddenly focus on the stone structure from which I seemingly emerged, picking up hazy shapes. I struggle to string together the letters into understandable phrases, engraved neatly on the platform where I stood.

_Terra._

_A Teen Titan._

_A True Friend._

I exhale.

_Who's Terra?_

—

Lyrics by... Tara Markov


	2. So Long, Lonesome

They're leaving today.

_Sometimes it seems so meaningless._

_Just... everything._

_And it's stupid, because that's what most people my age think. It's what most red-blooded, garden variety punk teenagers mull to themselves as they stress over their menial work, complain about their laughable responsibilities, and lead their easy lives._

_Hell, it may even be how people my age are **supposed** to think._

_But I'm not an average teenager, not some snotty, whiny kid with trivial troubles and Mommy and Daddy's paycheck to back me up when I find myself in trouble. I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders and responsibility most people never have to face in their lives. I've never had a reason to think like an average kid, because I've never lived like one._

_And yet..._

_It still seems so meaningless._

_It still sounds pathetic when I say it. It still sounds like a kid who just wants someone to pay attention to his pointless cries. A little boy with no real way of changing the entropic world around him._

They all have their reasons...

...Ascending to the throne...

...Starting up a career...

...Trying to regain a normal life...

...Reclaiming what's left of inner virtue...

But it comes back to one thought as they gather at the edge of the island.

_Seems so meaningless._

_Everything you struggle to hold together stays united for only so long, because no matter how many saviors you throw at the world, it'll always come back at you with one more obstacle. One more villain with a hostage. One more invading alien race. One more civilian casualty..._

_And then, all of the Collective Pieces of Meaning decide that they can't handle it anymore; they decide that their meaning lies somewhere else. With some other face or secret identity or conscience-freeing excuse. And the meaning is lost._

They turn to leave.

My support.

My friends.

I tell them that I'll see them around.

Then... they're gone.

And so is my self-pity.

_I'm _**not**_ an average teenager. I don't _**get**_ to give up. I don't _**get**_ to sob and sulk, whine and complain. I get to look down, find a foothold, and continue forward; it was decided for me long before I swung through the air to fight crime. It was decided by fate... and the world... and the Powers That Be... and the Powers That Like to Dick Around With My Life._

_With or without my friends, my teammates, my family behind my back, I have to continue..._

I see them for the last time as they become dots in the horizon.

_...And maybe, some day, they'll be back. And I'll get to rediscover... meaning._

—

Lyrics by... Richard Grayson


	3. Catastrophe and the Cure

I once talked to Steel.

Not much reason to, really. No more than anyone else, that is. I just turned to throw away something I was holding (A couple of toothpicks? I can't remember anymore...) and there he was.

Everyone always asks who my mentor is, who trained me in superheroics. Robin's got Batman, Raven had the monks or whatever, Starfire had her entire planet, Beast Boy had the Doom Patrol, and I... I had emergency operations and the karmic results of dangerous science projects. So I never answer. And I usually never even think about it.

But there I was, staring at the only human to step up to replace Superman after he died... or didn't die ...or whatever. The first thing I noticed was his brow. It was low, thick, chiseled into his face like granite. It held his features together strongly, armoring his eyes and locking into his forehead. It was a fighter's brow.

Like my dad's.

The second thing I noticed was his presence. Something you should know is that contrary to what all the comic books and TV shows say, not all superheroes are built like tanks. Even at an invite-only party at the Justice League Watchtower — where I found myself that night — six feet two inches gave me enough height clearance to see comfortably over most people in the room. Same tends to go for muscles. But he was a different matter.

For some reason, I can't remember how tall he was or even how ripped he looked. All I could think was that he looked like he could beat the gears out of me, on a battlefield or on a workbench. He looked independent, like he had fought for everything he'd ever gotten, but also unafraid to step up and provided a steady hand for others when things could dirty.

"Hey John!"

The exclamation from somewhere in the hall brought me out of my trance and I suddenly noticed that he had been staring back at me with my exact same gaze. We'd probably been standing there for a good couple of minutes, eye to eye, wordless.

I remember opening my mouth kinda sheepishly to pull out a greeting or something to make myself seem less mechanical, but he answered the call before I could really react.

"I'll be right there in a second."

He didn't take his eyes off of me and I still don't know how I managed to mumble out what I did.

"Uh– How... what do you...how do...?"

He only reached in a suit pocket and held a small white card out to me..

"We should really finish this conversation. Gimme a call some time."

Now, as I rest in the Main Room, the tower sits motionless, empty of other inhabitants. It's midday, midweek, and everyone is out visiting someone or something, occupying their precious free time happily. Slowly turning the bent, faded card over, I glance thoughtfully at the telephone on the corner of the table... and allow myself the trace of a smile.

Never too late to start.

—

Lyrics by... Victor Stone


	4. The Only Moment We Were Alone

If the moon hadn't been shining so bright, he would've looked like part of the tree: a twisted root maybe, a fallen stump, a gnarled mess of branches. As it was, the cloudless sky caused him to glow like specter. A specter crumpled against a thick tree trunk, motionless save for a heaving chest.

He leaned over to his side and positioned himself to spit out the blood to the side.

It was showy, and he knew it. Ollie had told him on many occasions that it always worked, that chicks loved it and couldn't resist it, and that he'd done it during his first brawl against Dinah and won her over on the spot.

Fortunately, no one was around to see the mess dribble out and down his chin. Arms too worn out to wipe it off (not that they wouldn't have done any good: each was its own mess of blood and mud), he just bent forward and nuzzled his shoulder, mixing the blood in with the color of shirt.

He closed his eyes, felt the familiar taste of iron coming to his mouth, and sat peaceably, a lunatic smiling in the moonlight.

It wasn't the first time.

No... the first time had been in the jungle. There were no masks then, it was informal and impractical in the highest degree; the dank humidity and swarming gnats would have made it impossible to see clearly with anything over either of their faces. Ollie had taken him on the trip to Vietnam. He didn't know why, it certainly wasn't the best place to take a little boy his age. But then again, Oliver wasn't known for being the best parental figure in those days. Or ever.

She was holding an AK, blasting away at the American forces her group had ambushed with all the might in her nine-year-old body.

Coming up silently behind her, he sprung from the brush, kicking the automatic out of her hands and coming face-to-face with the same dark brown eyes that hid behind the cat-like mask that night in the forest...

He exhaled deeply, emptying his lungs of the shallow breaths he'd been collecting, and leaned his head on the splintered mess of a tree trunk against his back. He'd been pinned against the tree for several minutes, avoiding the clawed slashes that had reduced the Maple Leafed Oak behind him to its current miserable state.

Clearly, she'd held nothing back...

He hadn't either initially, matching her blow for blow and knocking her down his own share of times. Until he clipped off her mask with a swing of his bow and stared into her eyes again.

She knocked him back quickly after that. She was holding nothing back, and yet... she'd walked away after that. The teenaged assassin-prodigy walked away from his weakened state.

He looked up at the sky and smiled: they'd meet again. Just like they had the previous full moon.

Until then...

He leaned to the side and gathered the spit in his mouth.

...he'd keep practicing.

—

Lyrics by... Roy Harper


	5. Welcome, Ghosts

What people don't understand is that they _stay_ with you.

The ghosts, that is. Not all of them. Well, yes, _all_ of them. But not all of each one. It's a hard power to explain…

Once, I was inside of Starfire.

A couple of years ago, we were in the middle of an intergalactic war on an alien planet, saving the people from a lunatic despot or some such – I've long since forgotten who or why. But Starfire was barely conscious and the emperor's palace was crumbling around us. Apologizing profusely, I slapped her face repeatedly until she founded my eyes with her half-concealed irises. We got out just in time; she thanked me and then never mentioned it again. But over the course of the next four days, I challenged three random strangers on the street to a fight, cried like a baby during two chick-flicks, and ate mustard with absolutely everything that went into my mouth.

Three months later, I jumped into Aqualad. Inside the water, I felt like a feather in the wind, a bubble in a stream. There were no worries, no troubles; even in the middle of a fight, all threats underwater were simply waves that would eventually wane in the aquatic expanse. But for the week after I left his body… I found myself angry at my inability to swim in the ocean of hot air, dried out, and alienated from land-dwelling life. Also, I hated my lame curly blonde hair.

A year ago, Doctor Light made the mistake of trying to stare me down in the midst of battle downtown. The scene in the middle of the street went from complete chaos to calm in an instant. I took complete control over the villain's body and walked him straight into a jail cell. That day, I read a shelf of textbooks from the Titan's library on astrophysics and quantum mechanics with my easily-tripled intelligence. But as I waited for my brain to return to normal for the next three weeks after the battle, I found myself unable to sleep without a nightlight, convinced and terrified of nocturnal horrors.

Nobody seems to really understand the power.

But it's probably why they all like me so much. The Titans, that is. I never disagree with anyone. How could I? I've seen the inside of most of them. I've been inside Beast Boy and felt his revulsion for eating slaughtered animals and paranoia toward new Titan recruits. I've wielded Cyborg's analytical mind and his crushing sense of responsibility. In every dispute, I am on every side of the argument, sharing the opinions of hundreds of thoughts I once shared.

Because they stay with you.

People aren't boxcars – empty vessels that I hop in and out of for free rides in fights. They're pools – filled to the brim with hot, cold, sticky, oily liquid of density and weight that dyes and tints and stains me every time I'm forced to commandeer a body.

So I've grown to accept them. Anticipate, welcome, and embrace them. The ghosts. The remnants of souls that bond to me for increasingly longer periods of time and leave behind increasingly more at each occasion. I can use them as my strength, to fill me up with the aid of dozens of comrades and still retain my own personality and sanity.

Right?

Yesterday, we brought down Raven. She was corrupted by Trigon, possessed, controlled and manipulated by evil, and I managed to hold her still in the last leg of the battle by staring into one of her four eyes and taking control while the other Titans brought her down.

Since then, I've been charging into battle without feeling fear or compassion, only cold indifference and a faint but growing tinge of anger. And I wonder if this time… I may have embraced more than I can handle.

I'm beginning to wish they would leave me for good.

But they won't, because what people don't understand is that they have a mind of their own.

—

Lyrics by… Joseph Wilson


End file.
